Big Brother on a Budget: How Internet Surveillance Got So Cheap

Gallagher, Sean. "Big Brother on a Budget: How Internet Surveillance Got So Cheap." ars technica, August 28, 2012.

From the article: "When Libyan rebels finally wrested control of the country last year away from its mercurial dictator, they discovered the Qaddafi regime had received an unusual gift from its allies: foreign firms had supplied technology that allowed security forces to track nearly all of the online activities of the country’s 100,000 Internet users…..The fact that the Qaddafi regime was using deep packet inspection technology wasn’t surprising. Many governments have invested heavily in packet inspection and related technologies, which allow them to build a picture of what passes through their networks and what comes in from beyond their borders. The tools secure networks from attack—and help keep tabs on citizens." Read more

DOE Wants Big Data To Mix, Blend Information For Users

Kenyon, Henry. "DOE Wants Big Data To Mix, Blend Information For Users." Aol.gov, August 29, 2012.

From the blog: "Big data can mean a lot of things to different federal agencies. To the Department of Energy, big data not only means managing an information sharing network to promote big science, but also making the results of that research available to the public.

This information can be blended together in a variety of ways, depending on the end users' needs, explained Robert Bectel, CTO and senior policy advisor at the DOE's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE)." Read more

Can An Open Source Electronic Health Record Ever Be Ready For Prime-Time?

Moukheiber, Zina. "Can An Open Source Electronic Health Record Ever Be Ready For Prime-Time?" Forbes, August 29, 2012.
 
From the article: "Considered one of the best EHRs,VistA’s creation dates back to the 1970s, when a band of programmers at VA hospitals persisted in developing the EHR, even after VA bureaucrats shut their project down. The VA eventually adopted it, and it serves as the backbone of its 163 hospitals and 800 clinics—the single largest health care system in the U.S. Political red tape, however, prevented innovation over the years….To modernize VistA,VA chief information officer Roger Baker and chief technology officer Peter Levin made a smart decision—and probably the only sensible one. They turned to open source developers." Read more

Facebook: The Real Presidential Swing State

Talbot, David. "Facebook: The Real Presidential Swing State." Technology Review, July 20, 2012.

From the blog: "Now, in 2012, Facebook is central to the upcoming presidential election. Both Obama and his Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, are well aware that half or more of the electorate is on Facebook. Both campaigns' websites are entwined with Facebook pages; visitors are encouraged to log in with their Facebook accounts and then post messages supporting the candidates for their friends to see. What Facebook also gives the candidates is an arena for testing, analyzing, and distributing precisely targeted political advertising." Read more

The Importance of Voluntary Technical Standard

Cooper, Alissa. "The Importance of Voluntary Technical Standard." Center for Democracy and Technology, August 29, 2012.

From the article: "Technical standards are the language that computers, phones, software, and network equipment use to talk to each other, seamlessly and regardless of where the devices or software were developed. Standards allow any technology developer, web site creator, or equipment manufacturer anywhere in the world to have their creations instantly available to and interoperable with the rest of the global Internet." Read more

Problems With Defining Jurisdiction on the Internet

Maher, David. "Problems With Defining Jurisdiction on the Internet." CircleID, August 27, 2012.

From the blog:  "The term "jurisdiction" has various definitions in law, but for our purposes here we can say it is the power of some legal body to exercise its authority over a person or subject matter or territory. In the Internet today, it is territory that gives rise to many major issues. As in real estate, what matters in jurisdiction is "location, location, location"….The more serious jurisdictional problems are now beginning to appear in cases that are more complex than trademark-domain name disputes. The European Union is beginning to enforce its data protection requirements outside the borders of the E.U." Read more

The Internet: Command and Control

Thomas, Daniel, Richard Waters and James Fontanella-Khan. "The Internet: Command and Control." The Financial Times, August 27, 2012. 

From the article: "Much of the controversy will hinge on the language of the regulations to be mapped out in Dubai. Some proposals published by the ITU and released to member states are seen as creating a benign environment for state intervention in content and access. Because of the vague language, that could mean blocking anything from spam to political material perceived as illegal.

Proponents of a free web fear broad clauses concerning national sovereignty and security could be used as smokescreen for legitimising censorship, clandestine monitoring and the blocking of websites." Read more

The Life, Death, and Revival of Implied Confidentiality

Hartzog, Woodrow. "The Life, Death, and Revival of Implied Confidentiality." August 7, 2012.

From the abstract: "The concept of implied confidentiality has deep legal roots, but it has been largely ignored by the law in online-related disputes. A closer look reveals that implied confidentiality has not been developed enough to be consistently applied in environments that often lack obvious physical or contextual cues of confidence, such as the Internet. This absence is significant because implied confidentiality could be one of the missing pieces that help users, courts, and lawmakers meaningfully address the vexing privacy problems inherent in the use of the social web.

This article explores the curious diminishment of implied confidentiality and proposes a revitalization of the concept based on a thorough analysis of its former, offline life. This article demonstrates that courts regularly consider numerous factors in deciding claims for implied confidentiality; they have simply failed to organize or canonize them. To that end, this article proposes a unifying and technology-neutral decision-making framework to help courts ascertain the two most common and important traditional judicial considerations in implied obligations of confidentiality – party perception and party inequality. This framework is offered to demonstrate that the Internet need not spell the end of implied agreements and relationships of trust." Read more